ComplaintsforThatcher's Tire Pros & Auto Center

• Initial Complaint

  01/27/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I went in to get my 2005 *** 530i aligned. This place had good reviews so I drove a hour and a half to get a good alignment. I dropped the car off and about a hour later I get a text saying it's done. I met up with my dad while I was down there so he brought me back to get my car. I went into the shop and they told me that my subframe has a crack from hitting a bump in the road. Upon further research and other people's experiences I found out that the crack they claim that came from a bump actually comes from improperly adjusting the eccentric bolt. Multiple people in *** fourms have stated shops have cracked thier subframes. Fortunately for them the shops owned up to thier mistakes and fixed it for thier customers. It could have been from a couple things. Either trying to loosen the nut without holding onto the bolt. Or attempting to turn the bolt without loosening the nut first. I think the first method was what caused the damage. An impact was probably used and the jaring caused the aluminum subframe to crack. After they told me about the crack they said they only aligned the front and they still charged me for a 4 wheel alignment. Now I'm left with a cracked subframe which is not safe.

  Business response

  02/28/2024

  I spoke with the tech and the service advisors concerning this complaint to investigate what had happened.  The technician that worked on the vehicle said he loosened the adjusting bolt to make the adjustment and upon loosening it noticed that the frame was cracked behind the bolt.  The technician took a picture of the crack so the service advisors and the customer could see why he didn't want to proceed with adjusting this part of the alignment.  If he was trying to hide this, he would have just done the alignment and not said anything.  I personally have owned a **** one of our current techs does, and I have had past employees that have owned them, so the vehicle isn't something that we aren't familiar with.  Loosening an adjusting bolt should never cause a frame to crack.  We have loosened thousands upon thousands of adjusting bolts and haven't experienced a frame cracking from just loosening the bolt.  Also, this is the first time this customer has been to the shop, so we don't have any idea who else had worked on this vehicle prior to it coming here.  This vehicle also had ******* miles on it.  Last winter and spring we had a horrible pothole problem in this area too.  I haven't ever seen so many damaged wheels, tires, and suspension components as I had last winter and spring because of this.  We were trying to inform the customer with a picture of what we found and why we didn't adjust the rear of the vehicle at that time.  I'm sure the vehicle has had an alignment somewhere during the time of its life where the damage could have been done prior to it coming here.  To say we are to blame when this is the first time the vehicle had been here and we didn't do anything more than loosen a bolt, I believe is a stretch to say we are responsible.

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